ZeroNet – Decentralised Networking

You know what? Lately I’ve given some thought to one of the possible uses of a Raspberry Pi.
You see, one of the projects I would love to undertake (except for my lack of funds) with a Pi is setting up a meshnet, setting up a bunch of Pi’s using their wireless capabilities to create what is essentially a mini-internet, this is great but it only has one real purpose for me, setting the files up as a fileserver in case of technological emergency.

But when combined with another technology, I think it has real potential.

ZeroNet promises a decentralised internet.
How it works is essentially you download a client which allows you to view websites by navigating via a specific address in your usual web browser and then? Well, you can then build your own site and send it out through the network.
Your site gets signed with a unique key that is special to you, so no one else can edit your site.
How it works is when you go to a site, the system downloads every page of that site to your system via a P2P network (much like bittorrent) and when the original host goes offline, anyone who has viewed that site becomes a new host, so new viewers get the source material from you and as an added benefit, sites remain cached so you can view them offline.

When I was but a kid and the world of the internet included custom spray-painted bricks that passed for a laptop, handy little animations that proclaimed the types of virus infecting your system and strange nicknames like ZeroCool or Crash Override, I imagined the internet to be the worlds biggest library, anything and everything you might want to find could be in reach with just a few clicks of the mouse.
We’re not heading in that direction, quite the opposite, when people are considered valuable based upon their “followers” on social media (many of which can easily be bought), when service providers want to create a tiered internet in order to charge you more to access information and services that belong, are hosted by and are funded by others entirely, that’s just not the internet I really want to be glued to.

What’s that you say? We already have the TOR Browser if I want a wild west internet? Very true, but there are limitations to this, you know that TOR works on a node system, essentially every computer connected to the network becomes an exit point, the idea being that if we fragment the data requests enough (by sending them through a dozen different exit points/IP’s) it becomes impossible to trace as no one can see the big picture.
Except for when Law Enforcement set up enough nodes, then they can essentially track who asks for what, significantly less secure.
I’m not even saying that I want to go out and break any laws, but I want the freedom to use the internet without worrying if my search terms put me on any database, without concern for the site name or title causing someone to think I am up to something (true story, had to get a communal news site I frequent unblocked, because the funny name they chose was considered pornographic).

Maybe I am wrong and everyone wants everyone else to be aware of everything they do online, all I know is that if something like ZeroNet came wrapped in its own little browser (or browser extension) I would seriously consider adoption and implementation, as it stands I am very tempted.

As it stands, never post anything to the internet that you don’t want coming back to haunt you, never search for anything that might be misinterpreted and never, ever talk about fightclub.